Manhandling a $300K, 508-Horsepower … Volvo?

Volvo has an image problem. But that’s nothing a 508-horsepower custom sedan with a $300,000 price tag can’t remedy.

Sure, there’s a surprising amount of spunk in their $44,000, all-wheel-drive S60 R-Design, a 325 horsepower stab at the sports sedan ideal epitomized by the BMW 3 Series. But the Swedish (by way of the Chinese) automaker’s historic obsession with safety makes it all but impossible for them to make serious in-roads to sports car fanatics.

So what to do? Tap into Volvo’s little-known racing heritage and leverage the engineering skills of an outside party.

A boutique tuning company called Polestar‚ which has served as Volvo’s official race partner since 1996 and provides warrantied performance tweaks to their factory offerings‚ Frankensteined an S60 by building a one-off super sedan for an unnamed (and rather well-heeled) Volvo aficionado (yes, they exist).

Since project car zero, five more of these bespoke beasties are being built in order to show exactly how edgy Volvo can be when they set their sensible Nordic minds to it.

“The difference is actually quite big,” Polestar’s North American sales manager Andreas Naeslund says, referring to — of all things — the S60 Concept’s paint when looking at the comparatively pedestrian R-Design sedan. For the record, the “Rebel Blue” hue available from the factory is imperceptibly darker than this particular shade, but that really illustrates more about the Swedes than any cultural guidebook will tell you. These guys revel in nitty-gritty details, and this extra special S60 is rolling, snorting proof.

Weighing some 220 pounds lighter than stock, thanks in part to carbon-fiber bodywork, the Polestar’s pavement-devouring personality can mostly be credited to the radically massaged motor lurking beneath the hood. It’s based on the same 3.0-liter inline-six cylinder block as the standard car, but that’s where the similarities end. A cannon-like intake manifold composed of CNC milled aluminum feeds an engine fitted with everything from forged connecting rods to a massive Garrett 3171 turbocharger. Extra lightness is derived from stuff you can’t get in the U.S., like a Getrag manual transmission gearbox that sheds about 90 pounds from the S60’s not-entirely-svelte curb weight.

Apart from subtle strips of Alcantara and the otherwise unavailable three-pedal setup, there’s little to betray this midsize sports sedan’s exotic underpinnings. The six fires up with a guttural hum, and there’s a perverse pleasure when you realize the green/yellow/red lights projected onto the windshield and originally used for Volvo’s City Safety system have been modified to display engine RPMs. Samuel Hubinette would approve.

It’s been a long while since Volvo was the naughty voice whispering in my ear.

The Polestar sits wider and lower thanks to swollen fenders and dropped suspension. A flex of your right foot coupled with the release of the heavyish clutch yields a forward push that doesn’t feel exceptionally swift. At least not yet. But climb through the rev band, and that demonstrative exhaust howl suddenly becomes an accurate signifier for what’s about to unleash from those six eager cylinders. The turbocharger spins up once the engine passes 2,500 rpm, assisting acceleration with a mighty whoosh and an urgent shove, which is allegedly capable of launching this midsize sedan to 60 mph in only 3.9 seconds.

I’ve been instructed to stay on the mellow side of the clutch, as its mounting hardware has been taxed by some of my lead-footed colleagues, but it’s just as well; here on Angeles Crest Highway, some 4,000 feet above Los Angeles, a light snowfall is dusting the road, and the summer-rated Michelin Pilot Sports aren’t quite up to the task of taming these sinewy bits.

But there’s a certain amount of shame that goes with tiptoeing around a car’s eager spirit due to something as trivial as the weather, and the S60 responds to my throttle input with rambunctious, unbridled charges towards redline, whereupon the dashboard light show comes in full swing, illuminating the progression of incandescents like a dragstrip Christmas tree. The roll-on acceleration is otherworldly, and the somewhat notchy transmission, which has been programmed to blip the throttle with rev-matched downshifts, obliges with a cabin-filling boom as the S60 is tossed into a corner.

We’re not quite going fast enough to feel the Haldex-equipped driveline’s limited-slip rear differential, which spins the rear wheels 1.5 percent faster than the fronts in order to essentially shove the car through a corner, thereby avoiding the annoying tendency of most Volvos to understeer their way through a bend. But we’re certainly going quick enough to feel that this firecracker of a sports sedan has more than a trace of supercar blood coursing in its royal blue veins.

Power is routed to the wheels with effortless authority, the remote reservoir-equipped Öhlins suspension conveying every last nook and cranny of these tar-snaked roads, while the six-piston Brembos leave nothing to chance when it comes to deceleration. Most importantly, this Volvo feels alive, egging you on to find out if those Michelins are really as grippy as they seem.

It’s been a long while since Volvo was the naughty voice whispering in my ear, but heck, if this ultra low volume proof of concept can’t stir my adventurous side, I don’t know what will.

Brawny, frisky and hot-rodded to within inches of its otherwise workabout life, this souped-up S60 makes a stunning case for genetic mutations developed deep in the bowels of the race shop. Its ultra-rare origins lend it an impossibly high price tag, but as a whimsical look at how far Volvo could go with this whole ultra high-performance thing, the S60 Polestar Concept certainly gives us hope for a saucier future that’s more Elin Nordegren than Swedish Chef.